Awkward Turtle

Guy wanted to surprise his girlfriend with a cake for her birthday. They are both "awkward turtles" and so he wanted to have a turtle to represent their shared joke. Adorable! This was a brownie lovers cake (chocolate cake with a layer of brownies in between). I wasn't sure what an "awkward" turtle really looks like so I tried my best. His legs and head are made out of rice crispies and then covered in buttercream and fondant. I hope he ate those too!

Graduation & Mustangs

Jenilynne just graduated from high school and so we had to celebrate, cake style. Her school colors were black, white, and red (or at least I hope they were). I tried a new technique on the sides of the cake and was pretty happy with the turn out. The cap and tassel were made out of fondant. The cake was an apple pie cake with cheesecake filling and then layered with buttercream. Here's a shot of the inside of the cake. Yay! On the same day, Liz wanted to celebrate Father's Day early and so I made a 1967 Mustang themed cake for her father. The mustangs were handmade out of fondant, as was the mustang on the top of the cake. Although I was afraid that it looked like a taxi cake, Liz's husband said it was totally recognizable as a mustang cake. Phew! The cake was a chocolate dipped cherry cake layered with chocolate buttercream and cherry filling. I hope they liked it :)

Pirates and Princesses

What 5-year-old doesn't want to be a pirate, right? Well, Grant wanted a pirate cake for his birthday. This cake was a buttery yellow cake layered with chocolate buttercream. Grant's mom wanted some cupcakes to go along with the cake so we came up with some designs that matched the cake theme.

The cupcakes are also buttery yellow cake covered in buttercream and dipped in crystallized sugar. The decorations on the cake and cupcakes are handmade out of marshmallow fondant.

Abbi, on the other hand, wanted to be a princess for her birthday. The top tier is made out of rice crispies and then covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. The towers are also made of rice crispies and the tower tops are ice cream cones covered in fondant. The bottom tier is strawberry cheesecake cake. I wanted to keep this cake very simple rather than going overboard with colors and decorations. I hope I accomplished that here :)

Sketches

I've had many people ask me how I design these cakes so I thought I'd share a few of the sketches I've made. I sketch each cake out so that the person ordering the cake knows exactly what they're getting.



This is the spring garden cake. As you can see, I try to stick with the sketch as much as possible but there are definitely tweaks here and there.






This was the martini/purse cake. The martinis are very subtle on the bottom tier. Other than the strap that ended up being completely behind the purse, I was pretty happy with the final product.






This one is the Sesame Street cake. Please don't judge my inability to color within the lines. :)


Here is Luke's block cake sketch and final product. This cake was such a challenge. It was one of those situations where I wasn't sure if I was proud of my work until the whole cake was finally put together. Then I loved it! Funsies!

Taking it back to Sonic the Hedgehog

Hellen needed a cake for her two sons who were turning 3 and 6. They both wanted a Sonic the Hedgehog theme and that got me so excited. SONIC! You remember Sonic! Sega's game with the blue supposed hedgehog who runs really fast and gets rings? Ah, yes, those were the days. In any case, this was the finished product. I was a little anxious to get Hellen's reaction because I was afraid I went overboard here (and you're just seeing the front!). I needed Rosie (my official director of limiting the excess) to tell where to stop. Hellen was awesome though. She was so excited as if it were her birthday too! :) It's so much fun to make a cake when the client is as excited as I am! The top is a white cake layered with vanilla cream and buttercream. The bottom is a chocolate cake layered with chocolate cream and rich chocolate buttercream. All of the decorations are handmade with marshmallow fondant.





There were a set of cupcakes to accompany the cake. These were so much fun to make and ended up being larger than expected (which is never a bad thing). The cupcakes are strawberry covered in buttercream and topped with fondant toppers. It's hard to see here but the edges are rolled in crystallized sugar because you never can have enough sugar!

Lastly, I just wanted to add one picture of the detail for this cake. This lil sonic guy and the ring around him were quite the task. Who doesn't love a little challenge in their life though, right? :)

The Utah Jazz in the Springtime

This week, I had two fun cakes to make. The first was a Utah Jazz inspired cake (my man-friend was so excited). Oddly enough, this cake gave me more grief than most of my other cakes because it just wouldn't cooperate. I'm a bit of a perfectionist (just a little bit though ;) and so at 2am last night I just didn't like the way it looked so I ripped off all of the fondant and started over. I wanted it to be awesome for Liz and her mom. It's a red velvet cake with vanilla filling and cream cheese frosting. Kendra's favorite player is Collins in case you were wondering.


The second cake I made was a spring-themed cake for Lizzy's mom (two mom's birthdays on the same day with two different daughters, Liz and Lizzy... interesting........). This cake has ladybugs, bumblebees, butterflies and different types of flowers on it. I hope Lizzy's mom loved it. It was an Emerald City Cake (green tinted white cake with a light pistachio flavored filled with pistachio filling and buttercream). It was so much fun to make a really vibrant and fun-colored cake. Ah, who doesn't love a good bit of caking?

Spring Flowers and Bees

Quinn is turning one so Breck is throwing a party with a bright flower theme modeled after Martha Stewart's pom-pom flowers. I was trying to get these flowers as bright as possible so hopefully you're blinded by the brightness :) It's a chocolate cake will chocolate cream filling and chocolate buttercream. Here's an up-close picture of one of the flowers.

Quinn had her own cake with a Baby Einstein theme. These two cakes were so much fun to make because of all of the colors and flowers. You have to love when people say, "Do whatever you think is best for the cake!" I always have to restrain myself because I've been told I can go a little too far and put a little too much detail on my cakes... yeah.... it's true. In any case, I'm hoping this isn't too much but is just right. We'll see what Breck and Quinn think tomorrow!

Martinis and Purses

Andrea wanted a graduation cake but I had to jump on her love of purses and martinis! She wanted a teal and chocolate brown color scheme with circles. The martini glasses are very subtle around the sides of the cake. I tried a purse cake once before and wanted to try a different style. The bottom cake is a strawberry lemonade cake with lemon buttercream. The top cake is red velvet layered with cream cheese frosting. This picture isn't the best in terms of color so I'm including another picture so you can see the light brown color. (Sorry that it's a bit blurry)

I also wanted to show the back of the cake. Same design elements and I tried to restrain myself from putting too many details on the cake (I've been told I can go overboard with my designs... crazy, I know! :)

Lastly, after carving the red velvet purse, I realized that Andrea probably needed more cake to feed her guests. I made a small side cake to go with this cake to feed a few more people. I used the same design scheme to match the cake.

Unicorns and Spiderman

Cameron turned three and his parents couldn't decide what theme to center his cake around so we compromised. This side is based off of the Last Unicorn movie. Everything is made with marshmallow fondant. The unicorn was quite a challenge because I wanted to get it as exact as possible to match the movie. Luckily, when Cameron saw the unicorn, he recognized it immediately. Yay! The top cake is orange creamsicle with orange buttercream and the bottom cake is red velvet cake with buttercream.

On the other side of the cake, we have spiderman. I'm not sure how Cameron felt about Spiderman, himself, but he did point out the spiders :) I hope he loved it!

Lastly, I wanted to give you a view of the side of the cake. The idea was to have two completely separate cakes put together and hopefully I accomplished my goal.

A cake for a Communication Scholar

This is the largest cake I've made to date. Phew! It's finals week and also the last week that one of my favorite professors will be teaching. She's an AMAZING communication scholar and wonderful teacher so I wanted to make this cake in honor of her life. We had a surprise party for her and she was just shocked. It was pretty awesome! The top tier is chocolate cake with coffee buttercream filling (because of her love of chocolate and coffee). The second tier is apple pie cake with cheesecake cream filling, and the third tier is orange creamsicle cake with orange buttercream. The bottom tier was a fake cake and we had just enough cake to feed her students in the class and the extra older students who came to surprise her.

Here are some closer photos of the images I created for the cake. Everything is handmade with homemade marshmallow fondant. It was so much fun to "research" her life and to see some memories recreated in cake. (Yes, those are a pair of panties falling out of a purse. :) haha. I love this woman!)

Dirt Bikes and Butterflies

It's been a while since I've been able to make a cake. School is consuming my life! Ahh! Almost done with the semester so I can focus on sweeter things in life. Anyway, this weekend, I was able to make two cakes. The first was quite a challenge to make. Sarah wanted to surprise her husband with a dirt bike cake since that's one of his hobbies. She supplied the mini-bike replica and I wanted to make her family in fondant form. Here is the finished product. Twas quite the challenge to get the track to read "30" and to have Sarah's husband standing up with the bike. It is a Turtle cake (chocolate cake with caramel and chopped pecans) covered in marshmallow fondant. Everything on the cake is edible and handmade, with the exception of the bike and the toothpicks holding up the signs. I hope you likey!














Here's a top view for you as well.












The second cake I made was for Sydney who is turning 11. Angela, her mom, wanted this cake to be "girlie" so I wanted to make an ode to the "Cakegirls." I was inspired by their design which was on a huge cake and just made it smaller for Sydney. The bottom is a rich chocolate cake with homemade chocolate buttercream and the top is a white chocolate chip cake with homemade buttercream. The butterflies were handmade and I actually piped the design on them, which was a first time for me (how I got this far without piping is still a mystery).

Who has Argyle fever?

I'm quite the fan of argyle... so when Shannon asked to make a cake that matched her beautiful invitations, I was glad to do it!

This was a turtle cake on top (chocolate cake with chopped pecans, caramel, and chocolate frosting) and a chocolate chip cake on bottom. The argyle was quite a learning experience to figure out. It seems so simple, yet requires so much :) Twas fun, as usual.

Shannon wanted a few extra cupcakes to make the cake and so there turned out to be 11 cupcakes (I got a little hungry in the process and didn't realize I ate the 12th one.... luckily she only wanted 6! hehe).

Tarantulas on Cakes? Of Course!

This cake was for a biologist who has four lovely near and dear spiders. The top tier is pina colada (with pineapple chunks and coconut shreds) with coconut buttercream. The bottom tier is a rich chocolate cake with white chocolate chips covered in chocolate ganache. The spiders were quite a challenge to get to stand on their own but I finally figured it out :) The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the spiders were also made with fondant. Some of them were hand-painted with edible food coloring to match the spiders I was trying to capture. I have to be honest, it was a big strange to have 4 large spiders on my coffee table when guests came over this week. Awkward, yet interesting conversation piece! Here's a better picture of the four spiders and their names... of course they have names! Why wouldn't pet tarantulas have names!? :)

Cinnamon Cupcakes

These cinnamon cupcakes were made for James' birthday. They are all spice cake. Two are covered in cinnamon buttercream, two have crushed gingerbread cookies and homemade caramel on top, and the other two are covered in homemade caramel covered with chopped almonds. Yummy!

Alphabet Blocks for Luke

This cake was for.... can you guess? LUKE! YES!! Good job! :) Luke's favorite toys are the Fisher-Price see-through alphabet blocks. Because cake isn't see-through, I took the objects on the inside (Lions for L, Umbrellas for U, Keys for K, and Elephants for E) and made them out of fondant to place around the blocks. The cake doesn't look as big as it did in person. Each block was 4-inches wide/long and almost 4-inches tall. I've learned a lot about shaping cakes and getting them as tall as I'd like. Twas quite the challenge but so much fun in the end. Luke (who is one) wanted two blocks to be red velvet cake with cream-cheese-frosting and two blocks to be yellow butter cake with chocolate frosting. Luke was thrilled when he saw the cake (and so was his mom :) She sent me a picture of the cake and the blocks that I modeled this cake after so you could see too!

Transformers... The Animated Version

So I grew up with the old school cartoons and I guess there's a new Transformers Animated series. This is a cake for Julien (who is so adorable!!) and his favorite character is Bumblebee. I made the three pictures by hand out of marshmallow fondant (and a LOT of patience... well, not at first, but I got there! :) One of the first things Julien said was, "CAN I EAT HIM!?" So cute! Hope you likey!

Nothing says Christmas like Penguins and Statistics!

The last two cakes I made this week were for a school/ work party and for an end of the semester class party. I know it's hard to see in this image but if you know anything about quantitative methods or statistics, you'll notice that there's no such thing as a Chi-NOVA-Regression Test.... not to mention "starliciousness." However, for us nerds in this class, we got quite the kick out of it :) This was a dark chocolate chip, peanut butter creme cake (so it tastes like a Reese's peanut butter cup). This was a very simple design for Christmas considering my next cake was a bit more intensive.

This cake was for a program that I work with at the University of Utah, called CLEAR (Communication, Leadership, Ethics, and Research). I wanted to do another wintery-themed cake and so penguins were the way to go. This was a red velvet and peppermint white chocolate chip cake layered with peppermint ganache (rich dark chocolate) and crushed candy canes. The igloo is made out of rice crispy treats and then covered in fondant and the other figures are handmade.

Enjoy your holidays everyone!!!

Batman and Marouf fight Crime!

After a long break from making cakes, I had four to make this week. Here are two of them. First up is a birthday cake, Batman style, for Hyrum. If you don't live in Utah, Hyrum is a very popular name. :)

This second cake is an inside joke. My awesome professor talked all semester about his love for hamburger pizza. He taught a class called "Critical Methods," and if you don't know what that means, don't worry most of us don't either :) hehe. In any case, my man-friend drew up this caricature of Prof. Marouf Hasian and I recreated it out of fondant. The cake was a white chocolate chip cake and all of the "pizza toppings" are fondant.

I also am attaching a picture of Marouf himself in order for you to get a better look at the man in the pizza :)